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“But you’ve always had a plan. Even back in high school, at St. Pious, you were the only one of us who knew for sure what she wanted to do.”
“I knew what I wanted to be, not do.” My lips twist ruefully. “I was going to be famous. I wanted everyone to know me.” Who knows why I thought being a celebrity would solve anything.
“And everyone does.”
“And now look where I am.”
“Sugar, maybe that’s what this is really all about. You met your goal. You’re famous. You’ve spent ten years on TV. Perhaps it’s time to change direction. Make some new plans.”
“Leave America Tonight?”
She reaches out, strokes my hair, smoothing it as though I were a little girl. “There are other shows, and you could do more than just TV.”
“But I like TV. I love TV.”
“Then at least you have part of your answer.”
I turn my head to look at her. My gaze holds hers. “I’m glad you’re here, Shey. I needed this.”
“I’m always here for you, and Tits, don’t worry so much. You have a great brain and amazing drive. You can do whatever you want to do. You just have to know what you want to do.”
The next morning, we get trail maps and directions from the concierge and head off on a hike in the San Jacinto Mountains.
It’s a cool morning and we’re both bundled up, but in layers so we can strip down as we heat up.
We’ve been walking about fifteen minutes when Shey glances at me. “Do you really miss Trevor? It sounds as if you’ve taken the breakup hard.”
“I don’t think I miss him, but I do miss being in a relationship.”
“Even if the relationship doesn’t work?”
“The real question is, when do you know it’s not working? How long does it take to figure out that things just won’t ever get better?” I unscrew the cap from my bottle, take a quick drink, and put it back on. “What’s sad is I didn’t feel that happy with Trevor, but I don’t think I would have been the one to end it. I liked believing someone, somewhere, cared for me. I liked pretending I’m not alone.”
“But you’re not alone. You have friends who love you to pieces.”
I flash her a smile. “Call me greedy, but I want both. Friends and romance.”
“I get that.” She unzips her green jacket and ties it around her waist. “And we should have both in our lives. Men are great, but they’re not women. Men will love us, but they’ll never really understand us, not the way our girlfriends do. And our men see us and love us in a way our girlfriends can’t. That’s why we need both.”
“Research shows that women with close friendships live longer and healthier lives than women without. Spending time with girlfriends is supposed to be one of the best stress busters out there.”
“I believe it.” Shey takes a long drink from her water bottle. “I already feel a hundred times better than I did when I arrived in L.A. Just hanging out talking about life makes life easier. Less overwhelming.”
I study her profile with the high, strong brow, straight nose, prominent cheekbones. Her face is one of those genetic wonders, yet there’s no drama attached to her, no air of superiority. She’s still a country girl at heart. “You’ve never found life overwhelming. You’re the most grounded woman I know.”
She turns to look at me, and her eyes are clouded with emotion. There’s a hint of panic in her voice when she answers, “I think I’m losing my bounce! Those little things that never used to bother me, they don’t seem so little anymore.”
“Like what?”
“Everything.” She laughs, but the sound is hollow. “What do you say we pick up our pace, really show these mountains a thing or two?”
Two hours later, back down off the mountain we stop at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in downtown Palm Springs for iced chai tea and sit on one of the low brick walls, sipping our tea and relaxing. The temperature is perfect, mid-seventies, with just a hint of a breeze. I don’t remember when I last felt so good, so happy.
“Let’s do this again tomorrow before we leave,” I say, flexing my toes to savor the stretch in my calves. “That was amazing. Exactly what I needed.”
“Such a different feeling than running in Central Park,” she agrees. “I need to get back to nature more than I do.”
I tip my face to the sun, lashes closing. “I used to. For a couple years Christie and I hiked once a month in the Santa Monica Mountains, but we’ve gotten out of the habit. Between trying to meet up with Trevor on weekends and Christie working on her latest film, we stopped scheduling the hikes, but I’m inspired to make it a priority again.”
She pushes up her sunglasses. “Me too. I think I better step up my workouts. Exercise is a great way to cope with stress.”
“So enough of this. Talk to me. What’s going on at home? What’s making you so sad?”
“I don’t know. But everything’s just off. My family doesn’t feel like my family. And I can’t stand to have the boys bullied like this at school. Nothing John or I do seems to make a difference, and we’ve had endless meetings with the principal.”
“All three boys are being bullied?”
“Mainly Coop. But then Bo tries to stick up for him and he gets made fun of, too. Makes me crazy, the name calling, the ridiculing. What’s wrong with kids? Why do they have to do it?”
I think of Eva and how she struggled in her Bellevue school the first couple of years after moving from New York to Washington. Marta was sick with worry. Even tried to become a PTA mom to help Eva fit in. “Kids can be horrible. Remember how Eva suffered after they moved?”
Shey nods. “At least Eva was plucky. Cooper’s not. He’s withdrawing more and more, and we’ve talked to the school and talked to professionals and everyone’s doing what they can, but he’s disappearing right before my eyes. John says it’s a phase and that eventually this will pass, but I don’t know. I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“For the past year. It gets better, then it gets worse. New York’s so different from where I grew up. Boys are different. They’re just so competitive and everything is about status and money and that’s not how I was raised. Sometimes I fantasize about packing us up and moving us back to Texas. It’d be good for the kids to grow up on the ranch. They’d realize that God gave them hands for things other than Nintendo games.”
“Can you do it?”
She laughs incredulously. “John leave New York? Never. He loves the city. He’d die of boredom in the country, and now that he’s transitioning from being a fashion photographer to owning his own gallery, he’s even more into the arts and culture scene.”
Shey and I didn’t just go to St. Pious together, we roomed together at Stanford. I know her better than I know any woman, and I’ve never heard her sound like this. Not about her marriage. Or her kids. “Are you okay?”
She doesn’t speak. Eventually she nods. “Yeah.”
But she’s not. “This is more than the boys, isn’t it.”
Her chest rises and falls as she takes a deep breath and then another. “No one ever said marriage would be easy,
right?”
“Right.”
She forces a smile. “We’re going to be fine. It’s just a blip, a bump in the road. We’ve had them before. Nothing to worry about.”
I smile back, hiding my worry. “You’re tough. You can handle whatever life throws at you.”
“Of course I can. Piece of cake.” She stands, tosses her now empty plastic cup in the trash bin. “I say a visit to the spa is in order. Whirlpool. Sauna. Maybe another massage.”
“I say, yes.”
Shey doesn’t bring up John or the problems at home again, and although I’m worried, I don’t press, waiting for her to talk when she’s ready.
So instead of talking, we hike, swim, suntan, and eat. And we eat a lot. Shey has the fastest metabolism of anyone I know. She can eat what two men can and not put on an ounce. Marta and I once talked about Shey’s ridiculous metabolism and we agreed if she weren’t so funny and warm and wonderful, we’d hate her. Sad fact, but true.
Sunday afternoon I drive her back to LAX for her flight. Shey, who rarely gets emotional, gets choked up when it’s time to say good-bye. She hugs me extra hard. “Thanks for the best weekend ever,” she says, her voice husky. “It’s exactly what I needed.”
“Me too.” I hug her back. “Call me if you ever want to talk. I can be a good listener.”
“I know you can. Love you, Tits.”
“Love you, too. See you in Seattle in a couple weeks.”
And just when I think she’s going to walk away, she puts her hands on my shoulders and gives me a little shake. “We can’t lose faith. We don’t always know why life happens the way it does, but we can handle it. We are strong enough. Right?”
“Right,” I agree, and as she walks into the terminal I know those words were for her as much as they were for me.
When I return to work Monday morning, I discover the show’s art directors have unveiled our holiday set and Clarence, our stage manager, wants my feedback. I love it. The stage looks like fantasyland with decorated wreaths and Christmas trees, candy canes, and nutcrackers. There is even faux snow outside the faux window. It looks deliciously wintery— and feels that way on the stage with the forty-degree temperature, too.
